Method of treating fabric



Jan. 28, 1941. T. GRAHAM 7 I METHOD OF TREATING FABRIC Filed Oct. 6, 1939 INVENTOR CLIRENCE Z' GRAN/4M. BY

' ATTORNEY Patented Jan. 28, 1941 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 2,229,910 q ltIETHOD OF TREATING FABRIC.

Application October 6,1939, Serial No. 298,177

3 Claims.

This invention relates to a method of and apparatus for treating fabric.

In the present commercial art there exists a fabric such, for instance, as disclosed in the patent to Graham, No. 2,155,127, issued April 18, 1939, and in the patent to Robertson et al., No. 2,110,118, issued March 1, 1938.

This fabric, when it comes from the weaving mill, consists of a ground and spaced dots which are formed of yarns or rovings and extend from the obverse side of the ground.

.Infinishing this fabric it has been the practice to apply the finishing material to the reverse side of the ground and dry the fabric so that the penetration of the finishing material into the raised dots or pile areas will be arrested before it materially affects thecharacter of those dots or pile areas.

Sometimes the fabricis treated as disclosed in the Robertson patent referred to, either frictionally or by compressed air or gas, to cause the dots or pileareas to become fiuify.

The present invention is directed particularly to the method of and means for flufilng separated pile areas and is particularly applicable to the fabric that I have described above and to the methods set forth in the patents to which I have referred, but it is not in any sense limited thereto. v k

In the drawing I have illustrated conventionally a machine for carrying out the method that forms part of the subject matter of this invention, in which drawing Figure 1 is a side elevation thereof;

Figure 2 is a fragmentary view, looking at right angles to Figure 1;-

Figure 3 is a view of the fabric before its treat ment; and v Figure 4 is a plan view after it has been shrlmk. I

The structure shown in the drawing includes showing the fabric Operatively mounted upon and conveniently, driven by conventional mechanism are 2 through 20, inclusive, all being mounted on parallel axes. Rotary brushes 2|, 22 and "are mounted on the frames I on axes parallel with the guide rollers to which reference has just been made, the brushes and 23 being prefer-i ably rotated in the same direction and the, brush; 22' in the opposite direction. 1

Guides 24 are arranged adjacent the rollers 2|, 22 and 23 on diametrically opposite sides therecf. These brushes 2| may be of the ordinary conventional bristle type having the bristles arranged substantially throughoutthelr length and over substantially their entire area, or they may be formed of other materials capable of producing a brushing action, such, for instance, as a pile fabric.

Arranged on opposite sides of the frames I are brushes 25 and 26 that are mounted upon driving rollers 21 capable of imparting movement to the brushes. These brushes may also be of the bristle type, or any other type capable of producing a brushing action. These brushes 2! and 26 may be arranged to travel longitudinally of themselves in the same direction, but I prefer to have themtravel in opposite directions for a purpose that I will later disclose.

The method that constitutes a part of the herein invention may be carried out on the machine that I have hereinbefore described as follows:

The fabric which'includes a relatively open mesh ground such as marqulsette or the like, and which includes spaced pile areas such as dots, and wherein the pile areas are separated from each other to form both longitudinal and transverse rows on the ground fabric, and wherein the ground fabric is unshrunk and the. pile areas lie fairly fiat upon the obverse side of the ground,

such as shown in Figure 3 of the drawing,is

first subjected to a conventional shrinking operatlon. This causes the filling threads to shrinkor contract and in so doing the pile areas that are arranged transversely of the fabric move together so that they form fairly contiguous transverse rows of pile areas, which rows are separated longitudinally of the fabric such as shown in. Fig. 4 of the drawing. The fabric in this,

shrunken condition is then dried and is fed to the machine that I have described above with the pile areas uppermost, around the rollers 2, 3, 4, i and 6, and thence over the adjacent guide 24, so that the relatively flat pile areas are presented ,to the rotating brush 2 I, the guide being arranged 5' so that the ground does not contact said brush.

This brush 2!, rotating as I have shown it in. a counter-clockwise direction, brushes up the successive longitudinal rows of the pile areas from their trailing to their leading edges.

Thence the fabric travels on around rollers 3';

land 9 to the next guide 24. In its travel from the brush II to the succeeding guide 24, the partly brushed pile areas are presented to the brush 25, which travels transversely of the fabric, and because of the movement of the fabric longitudinally of itself engages the rows of pile areas in a resultant diagonal line, thus further brushing up the pile areas diagonally from one side to the other.

Thus doublybrushed the pile areas are presented to the brush 22 which'I have shown to be 5 rotated in a clockwise direction. Here again the guide 24 is so arranged that the ground of the fabric is not presented to the brush. This brush 22, during its rotation, further brushes up the pile areas'from the leading to the trailing edge.

The fabric then travels on around a roller l and over a similarly arranged guide 24 which presents the triply fiufied up pile areas alone to the brush 23 that I have shown rotating in a counter-clockwise direction. Here again the brushing action is the same as that of the brush 2|, but because of the different condition of the pile areas when they reach the brush 23 there is a further fiuffing action.

Passing around the rollers II and i2 the fabric is presented to the brush 23 on the opposite side to that to which it was first presented, and successively to the brushes 22 and 2| on the opposite sides to which the fabric was first presented, passing in its travel to presentation to these brushes over rollers l3, l4, l5, l6, l1, l8 and I9 and over the three guides 24 adjacent the rollers 2 l, 22 and 23.

In its travel after passing the roller 23, or indeed even before passing this roller, the pile areas are again presented to a transversely movable brush 28 which imparts a brushing action diagonally of the line of travel of the fabric and transversely of the fabric itself in a direction opposite to that of the brush 25. After being subjected to these brushing actions the fabric is carried off over the roller 20 to a stretchin operation. This stretching is for the purpose of a transverse stretching of the fabric, and it may be accomplished by the usual tenter frame. In 40 this stretching operation the pile areas are again separated transversely with the result that there is created a ground fabric which has fiufiy pile areas spaced both longitudinally and transversely of the fabric ground.

4 After this-stretching operation the back of the fabric may have applied thereto a finishing material. The penetration of this finishing material intothe fabric may be arrested before it substantially penetrates the pile areas, with the 50 result that the ground of the fabric will be finished and the pile areas will maintain their flufiy form. This may be accomplished by the mechanisms and the methods set forth in the patents to which I have above referred.

55 Of course this method may be applied in a more restricted sense to the brushing up of the pile areas after the stretching of the fabric and the application and drying of the finishing material.

00 It will be realized that as the transverse rows of the pile areas pass .over the guides 24, the pile areas will be in a manner pushed out from the ground and because of the arcuate contact between the pile areas and the brushes 2|, 22 and 65 23, there will be an engagement of the brushes only with the pile areas and notwith. the ground. Thus the pile areas are subjected successively and several times to brushing up actions from the trailing to the leading edge, and from the 70 leading to the trailing edge, and are also subiected to diagonal brushing up action in both directions.

. thereof arranged in transverse and longitudinal In a broader aspect the invention is not restricted to the treatment of fabric wherein the pile areas are actually in rows. for the method is applicable when the pile areas are arranged in a different or more irregular form but separated 5 when the shrinking step is accomplished. The pile areas will be moved togetherwhether they are arranged in rows or differently or irregularly, and the brushing and, finishing operations may then be carried out.

Of course it may be realized that this method may be carried out by means other than that disclosed, and I, therefore, do not wish to be limited to the use of that means in so far as the method is concerned, and only to that use 5 in so far as the breadth of the apparatus claims is concerned. a

What I claim is:

I. The method of treating a strip of fabric having a relatively thin, light, open mesh ground 1 and longitudinally and transversely spaced but flattened and unfiufled pile areas on the face thereof arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows to produce a fabric in which the ground is finished and the pile areas are flufied up and unfinished and generally upstanding from the ground which includes: shrinking the ground to move the pile areas substantially together transversely for subsequent brushing, drying the fabric, moving the fabric in the direction of its length, subjecting the longitudinally separated pile areas successively to the actions of brushes operating both in the direction of the length and the direction of the width of the fabric, applying a sizing material to the back of the fabric ground, stretching the fabric transversely to separate the pile areas, and arresting the penetration of the size into the fabric before it travels substantially into the pile toward the pile ends.

2. The method of treating a strip of fabric having a relatively thin, light, open mesh ground and longitudinally and transversely spaced but flattened and unfiuifed pile areas on the face thereof arranged in transverse and longitudinal rows to produce a fabric in which the ground is finished and the pile areas are flufled upand unfinished and generally upstanding from the ground which includes: shrinking the ground to move the pile areas substantially together transversely for subsequent brushing, drying the fab ric, subjecting the longitudinally separated pile areas successively to the actions of brushes travelling both in the directions of the length and the width of the fabric, and stretching the fabric transversely to separate the pile areas.

3. The method of treating a strip of fabric having a relatively thin, light, open mesh ground and longitudinally and transversely spaced but flattened and unfiuffed pile areas on the face rows to produce a fabric in which the ground is finished and the pile areas are fiufled up and unfinished and generally upstanding from the ground which includespshrinking the fabric to move the dots substantially together transversely for subsequent brushing, subsequently brushing the dots to render them fiufly while they are still adjacent each other, and thereafter stretching the fabric to separate the dotsinto their ultimate positions.

CIARENCE T. GRAHAM. 

